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Jenna Hanchey

Jenna N. Hanchey uses decolonial and anti-racist theory to examine Western aid and development initiatives in Africa, and how such future trajectories are resisted and reimagined in the continent. Her research attends to the intersections of rhetoric, critical/cultural studies, African studies, Black feminisms, and critical development studies.
Her first book, The Center Cannot Hold: Decolonial Possibility in the Collapse of a Tanzanian NGO, examines how decolonial potential can emerge from the collapse of neocolonial aid and development structures. Her second book, Africanfuturism: Beyond Development, analyzes Africanfuturism in speculative fiction and the ways that Africans imagine futures beyond and against those predicted by the West. This work was awarded a 2022 NEH Summer Stipend, 2023 ASU Institute for Humanities Research Seed Grant, and Transformation Project Seed Grant, and is under contract with The Ohio State University Press for their series "New Suns: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Speculative."
Her academic work may also be found in Feminist Africa; Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies; Journal of International and Intercultural Communication; Review of Communication; Communication, Culture & Critique; Women's Studies in Communication; Women & Language; Departures in Critical Qualitative Research; and Management Communication Quarterly, among other venues. She co-edited a double issue of The Review of Communication with Dr. Godfried Asante on "(Re)theorizing Communication Studies from African Perspectives," published in Fall 2021 and Spring 2022.
Dr. Hanchey's research has won multiple awards, including the NCA Ethnography Division Best Special Issue Award, NCA Philosophy of Communication Division Distinguished Themed Edited Journal Award, NCA Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division Early Career Award, NCA Critical and Cultural Studies Division New Investigator Award, ORWAC Feminist Scholar of the Year Award, NCA Critical and Cultural Studies Division Outstanding Article Award, NCA Feminist & Gender Studies Division Outstanding Article Award, NCA Ethnography Division Best Article Award, and NCA Critical & Cultural Studies Division Outstanding Dissertation Award, among others.

Works by This Author

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